Towards computational eco-analysis of building designs

摘要

This paper argues that: (a) construction and operation of buildings is internationally a major cause of resource depletion and environmental pollution, (b) traditional criteria of construction cost and energy use estimation are insufficient in view of a comprehensive environmental impact analysis of buildings, (c) LCA (life-cycle analysis), "eco-bookkeeping" and "eco-balance" approaches could be advantageously utilized in concurrence with more traditional engineering, cost estimation and energy simulation to obtain a broader building design evaluation scheme and (d) appropriate IT-based computational tools could facilitate environmentally informed, integrative decisionmaking throughout the building design, construction, operation and decommissioning phases. Toward this end, this paper specifically introduces the prototypical realization of a computational tool for the integration of environmental impact modeling approaches within an object-oriented space-based CAD environment. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. References: 11